In the following essay, March examines the insecurity and self-ridicule demonstrated by the protagonist of "The New Dress." Virginia Woolf's short story "The New Dress" is often overshadowed by her more popular stories, such as "The Duchess and the Jeweler," "The Mark on the Wall," and "Kew Gardens." Stel-la McNichol includes "The New Dress in Mrs Dalloway's Party," a volume of short stories by Woolf that centers around the experiences of guests at the party Mrs. Dalloway throws in Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway. McNichol writes that "The New Dress" "was written in 1924 when Virginia Woolf was revising Mrs Dalloway for publication." Here, though, as in the other stories in that volume, Woolf gives us not Clarissa Dalloway's experience of her own party but the experiences of other guests at that party. Mabel, the protagonist of "The New Dress" is one of those guests, and she feels out...